Description

The entire solar system is being attacked by the vicious Gyrusians, and it's up to you to save the day! You will need to fly your spaceship to each of the nine planets and then clear three stages of enemies to rid that planet of the Gyrusians. You start the game with a single cannon, but can gain a double cannon after shooting a power up satellite. After clearing each planet, there is another bonus stage where additional weapons and bonus points can be collected. Gyruss is an arcade action shooter, however instead of piloting your spaceship horizontally or vertically, you move in a circle around the perimeter of the screen. The NES version of Gyruss adds to the original arcade version additional music, additional weapons, new enemies, and a large boss at the end of each level.

1001 Video Games

Music

The theme music for this game is from the 18th century. While not a complete arrangement of the piece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was written by J.S. Bach. The electronic drums are introduced for a more contemporary touch.

Speccy port

The game was also announced by Parker Brothers for the ZX Spectrum, and not as a common tape game, but for the seldom-used cartridge port found ZX Interface 2. Parker later withdrew its announcement, both for Gyruss and Star Wars, though the latter was picked up by Domark.